After taking a bit of a break from the MCU, the Russo brothers are coming back to produce one of Marvel’s most anticipated films of 2025. We’re cheering at this good news since we think Joseph and Anthony Russo’s storytelling powers are swooping in to save the day.
The Russo brothers have a long history with Marvel, having directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014, Captain America: Civil War in 2016, Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, and Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
Now, X account @cosmic_marvel shared that the directing duo will also be producing Captain America: Brave New World.
Captain America 4 has a great cast including, of course, Anthony Mackie, along with Liv Tyler, and Harrison Ford (who is replacing the late William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross). We’re hopeful that the other Captain America: Brave New World news proves he will be a strong addition to the MCU. We’re also crossing our fingers that now that the Russo brothers are attached as producers, we can finally say that the MCU is back.
In the last little while, Marvel Studios has had a hard time creatively and in terms of box office success. We could argue that in the past few years, it felt like the MCU overdid it with one movie and TV show after another, and not all of them measured up to past releases. While WandaVision and Ms. Marvel are fun — and also totally accessible for people who haven’t seen a lot of Marvel projects — the other shows don’t really measure up. We didn’t like Secret Invasion, which as far as we can tell had zero impact on anything else in the MCU, and we can definitely say that 2023 was a particularly frustrating year for Marvel fans. While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was a critical and box office triumph, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was messy, and The Marvels felt underwhelming — you know it’s bad when the marketing for a movie has to practically give away its big post-credits reveal to get people to see it.
When it comes to the last few Marvel movies, the box office totally speaks for itself. In December 2023, Variety reported that The Marvels made less money than any Marvel movie in history. It made $197 million worldwide and the North American box office was only $80 million. Since the budget was more than $270 million, according to Forbes, that’s pretty bad. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania had a rough time, too. The movie’s worldwide box office pull for six weeks was only $470 million, as Variety reported.
After these fails, it’s no wonder fans haven’t felt super excited to go to their neighborhood movie theater and see the latest release. But we think that’s going to change with the Russo brothers producing Captain America 4.
The two Avengers movies that the Russo Brothers directed are some of the best in the MCU. This is thanks to their brilliant concept called “strange alchemy” where they wondered how characters who haven’t interacted before would get along. They discussed this in the commentary for Avengers: Infinity War and we’re still totally fascinated by it. They also shared that they were particularly interested in putting Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) together, as they are both narcissists but with opposing power systems — Strange is an amazing sorcerer while Stark is a super smart scientist.
It’s also clear that the Russo brothers’ work as TV writers and directors on ensemble sitcoms like Community and Arrested Development allows them to find cool, compelling dynamics between our beloved Marvel stars. They have a lot of experience working with big casts, and since there’s so much to balance in the MCU, that’s a good thing.
The Russo brothers love Marvel as much as all of us do, which definitely shows. In 2019, they chatted with the amazing film critic Peter Travers, and Anthony Russo talked about what makes Marvel stand out so much.
According to ABC News, he praised the “serialized storytelling” and said, “We get to take chances and we get to go places in individual films that you might not be able to otherwise. It’s very rare to see a Hollywood movie, especially a big major release where the bad guy wins.” Anthony explained that in real life, villains do get away with things —sigh — but as he said, the films still have happy conclusions in a way. He added, “There’s still hope for the future because the story’s not over.”
The Russo brothers are also the right people to take on Captain America: Brave New World because they’re so passionate and stick to their beliefs. According to Business Insider, the book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe shared a story about people not being sure that Steve Rogers and Tony Stark should have conflict. Joe explained that he and his brother were close to leaving the project and said that they explained, “We’re not interested in continuing as directors of this movie if it is going to be about politics and managing a third act.”
While we’re hopeful for a Young Avengers movie, we can’t wait for Captain America 4, and now we have an even better feeling about it. Whether the Russo Brothers continue with the MCU after Brave New World or this merely opens the door for other creative teams to join, we’re ready.
